The detachable shield for tactical equipment box generally relates to law enforcement equipment and more specifically to a shield that locks upon a box storing weapons therein.
For centuries, merchants, banks, corporations, people of means, and others have transported high value cargo. The cargo has such value that its container must survive a failure of its transportation and corruption of persons who handle it. High value cargo travels within containers of great strength and limited access to open them.
In olden days, high value cargo, such as gold or jewels, travelled in strongboxes. Such strongboxes had a rigid construction with reinforced edges and intricate locking mechanism. Even if a strongbox fell off a transport vehicle or the vehicle caught fire, the strongbox kept its cargo safe. In modern times, high value cargo travels in armored vehicles with less corruptible handlers and guards.
High value cargo also includes firearms and other weapons. These weapons assist law enforcement officers to carry out their duties. Law enforcement officers travel in various vehicles, automotive, aircraft, and watercraft. Such officers predominantly use upgraded sedans and now SUV. In those vehicles, weapons face transportation risks much like cargo of the olden days. In those vehicles, weapons face new risks from skilled thieves and perhaps gunrunners for extra-legal groups.
Law enforcement officers deal with active shooter situations more and more often. In those situations, a person or persons have opened fire on civilians and law enforcement must respond instantly. Law enforcement officers, also called first responders, do not have the luxury of time to travel to the police armory and load up emergency gear and special equipment prior to responding: the public expects them there already. Special units, like SWAT, take time to muster and then respond. SWAT teams generally have a small percentage of people responding to an emergency. That leaves patrol officers, your typical cop, to protect the public, instantly. Patrol officers must have their specialized weapons and safety equipment immediately available to them, in their patrol cars, so to respond safely and instantly to an active shooter situation, a riot, and the like. Any and all on duty officers must have the proper equipment, with them, to respond to these active shooter, terrorist, and other calls. At the same time, police automotive vehicles become smaller as the amount of police equipment grows.
The rising number of active shooter situations and fluctuating terrorist threats call for more law enforcement officers to respond differently than in the past, the recent past no less. Law enforcement officers must respond directly to the scene, such as the Boston marathon bombing, the Sandy Hook, Conn. school shooting, and the Aurora, Colo. movie theater shooting. Law enforcement officers must have all of their active shoot equipment that they may need to deploy. And the equipment must remain secure within a vehicle but transfer readily from one vehicle to the next as a law enforcement officer transfers. The need for preparation and swift response has expanded from just the patrol units and SWAT teams to others. Even off-duty officers must have the preparation and equipment to respond directly to a scene. Management of law enforcement, such as command staff, administrators, and detectives must also prepare and equip themselves to respond to a scene as well. As these various persons prepare and respond to a scene, security of the equipment and convenience to a law enforcement officer become critical to effective and safe deployments.
An urgent need exists to provide police and other law enforcement with a way to transport and then secure emergency tactical gear in patrol vehicles. Such gear includes rifles, shotguns, other firearms, ballistic helmets, hard armor plates and plate carriers, ammunition, personal ballistic shields, and the like.
Police officers face an additional problem currently. Over half of the new police and law enforcement vehicles have the form of SUVs and trucks rather than the traditional sedans with trunks. Because of the lack of trunks in the current SUVs and trucks a need exists to secure and conceal tactical gear and equipment and ballistic shields.
Current events involving protests, near riots, and riots have rapidly increased deployments of police and law enforcement. Those deployments have more officers transporting more gear than in the past. The tactical protective gear, equipment, and weapons carried in police and law enforcement vehicles have a selection and arrangement made by each officer. This gear largely reflects the individual preferences of each officer rather than traditional generic or standard “in every car” equipment, commonly seen as first aid kits, blankets, fire extinguishers, and the like. Transporting all of the individual equipment, such as helmets, plates, ballistic shields, plate carriers, and weapons, to and from a patrol vehicle must be secure, rapid, and easy for the officers. Merely carrying all of these tactical items, gear, and equipment with other officer gear would call for multiple trips by an officer to and from a police department headquarters and his vehicle at the start and end of each shift for each officer.